Oakspear

Part of the inattention paid to who went with whom was due to the fallacy that any two believers, renewing their minds, could live together and get along (similar to the belief that any two standing believers could get married and make it work). How many horror stories are out there of WOW groups who were literally at each others' throats? And don't forget the sexual dynamic: young men and women living together was a serious temptation for many people. How many WOW groups fell apart because they ended up in the sack with each other?

TheHighWay: That's right! Whatever the highest level of leadership in any situation decided was ,by definition, right, simply because the highest level of leadership in that situation had decided it.

will you accept a check?

WordWolf mentioned, on his thread about The Way, Living in Love, Wierwille's lack of experience with any kind of training program, yet he established several: ThecWay Corps and the W.O.W. Ambassadors. What kind of training did we receive as W.O.W.'s? I went out once, in 1980-81. We spent two or three hours per day during the ROA, for three days, listening to various leaders read bible verses that might or might not have any relationship to what we were going to face "on the field". We were supplied with a "family coordinator" who was twenty years old and overly impressed with his own spirituality, as well as how much women were attracted to him. We were overseen by a Limb Coordinator who provided little, if any, practical advice. Any good that could be strained from the year's experiences cxan be credited to our own tenacity and ability, not to any alleged "training" that we received.

Of course, he's from Nebraska!!

The other day at the store where I work a customer tried to return a bottle of prune juice. Usually, no problem. This time, the checker looked at the expiration date, and saw that it had expired in September...of 1980!!!! :o Of course the refund was not issued

If the "simplicity of The Word" is so simple, why do we need "keys"? Why do we need to understand Orientalisms and figures of speech? Why is it that a "simple" reading of "The Word" yields so many different answers?

I left twice. Once in 1983, due to an argument with local "leadership" over interfeence in my personal life. But since I had retained most of my TWI beliefs, I went back when, in my opinion, things had changed. That was 1990. I stuck around 11 years the second time around. The lawsuit was my impetus for leaving, but they actually had to throw me out, since I was sticking around waiting for my then-wife to see the light also.

Discussions of the nature of the godhead are complicated. Whatever verses or concepts one chooses to elevate, the other guys have verses to prove the opposite. The doctrinal debates of the second and third centuries revolved around the nature of Jesus and God and their connection to each other.

Sure, but it has taken on the meaning of one particular branch of Christianity

Allan: My opinion is that we really don't know for sure whether the teachings of Jesus and the "First Century Church" were recorded faithfully and "accurately". Of course it's possible that they were, but the factional battles resulted in the writings and teachings of the dominant and most politically powerful faction becoming enshrined as the "canon of scripture". In my view, Joseph Smith's claim to unique revelation isn't any more silly than some of what is in what we know as "The Bible". What we call the New Testament was not handed down on stone tablets from Sinai, but collected and argued over for centuries before being declared "scripture". Your opinion of what Christianity is, what truth is, is as as valid as anyone else's, and I hope it works for you, but there being so many views of what the truth is, even within the relatively small group of ex-wayfers still using Wierwille's "keys", that using your view as the truth as a platform to beat down and deride others' beliefs stands on very shaky ground.

I heard that he found the skunk pelt in a box of cracker jacks...and the rest is history

I'm usually not much of a complainer or a whiner, and in some ways I feel really stupid for starting this thread :blink: but if I had it deleted, it would genearate another thread, with challenges to the moderators about why the thread was gone... ...I couldn't sleep at night with that on my conscience :unsure:

The sex aside, this was typical Wierwille "biblical research": take a verse, decide that it doesn't mean what it plainly says, and supply the words that God would have used if God meant what everybody thought it meant

same ol', same ol' Big build up, no delivery :huh:

I guess it depends on how much our hypothetical "innies" are willing to think.

Who was paying for all these subscriptions that got thrown in the trash?

Hmmm, haven't heard that handle in a while B)

I still check the forums every day, and I still enjoy crossing rhetorical swords with some of the folks here, but I guess I just don't have the passion for Grease Spot Cafe that I once did. No, this isn't one of those "goodbye" threads. I'm not going anywhere for a while, and if I do, I won't start a thread about it. :blink: When I first started posting, Waydale and Grease Spot were my lifelines, a place where I could express my true thoughts about TWI, the lawsuit(s), and what was taught in WayAP. Later, when I first separated from my first wife, certain GSers supported me in my hour of darkness. I remember going in to work on Christmas, when the store was closed, because I had nothing to do and no one to do it with. I didn't have a computer at home, so I logged into the chat room and found a few of my chat buddies in there. In 2002 I spent almost two weeks travelling around the midwest and northeast, visiting not only family, but various GSers. I went to several Weenie Roasts, and met over thirty GS posters in person during my travels. Grease Spot cafe has been an important part of my life. It still is. But, it has moved down a few notches :mellow: Maybe it's the new marriage, including a new step-daughter along with the new bride. Maybe it's partly the disappointment at the lack of GSers at our wedding, despite the early chorus of "I'll be there", followed by "I'm sorry, I can't make it", followed by a well-attended Weenie Roast. Maybe it's just that I've been putting a lot of time into it for a long time and it's time for a change of pace. Maybe I miss the old emoticons :( Anyway...I'm heartened to see a fine crop of newbies here lately, and hope this bods ill for our favorite cult < <

Doh! :o

A lot of the "keys to biblical research" that Wierwille, and indeed even Bullinger, taught, were just another type of bible code. Very often you couldn't just read the narrative, or the epistle in order; no, you had to skip around and make it "fit". Interpretation was based on things like "number in scripture", which was speculative at best and the supposed structure of a section. Why would a god, who 'would have all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth' make those same men jump through hoops within hoops to get that same truth?

The point is to demonstrate the unreliability of VP's statements to anyone who might be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. How many out there still believe things simply because Wierwille said it? For example: Even if one claims to have "worked the Word" on one's own, if the definitions of Greek & Hebrew words are Wierwille's, then the conclusions are going to be skewed It's not that anyone really cares about light bulbs, but the holes in his story casts doubt on his truthfullness, and therefore his trustworthiness

But did we have to dig through all the crap to get to the goodies?

There is no such thning as "a Wicca" - there is at least one "Wiccan" posting here On the contrary, I believe that the wide variety of beliefs could conceivably convince some "innies" that the TWI viewpoint is not the only one possible.